New Study Shows No Global Warming Pause

UNITED STATES—There has not been a pause in global warming according to newly published findings. A new study in the journal “Science Advances” back an earlier NOAA study that came to similar conclusions.

According to The Washington Post, a 2015 NOAA study contradicted an argument questioning the scientific consensus on climate change.

“The skeptics had for years suggested that following the then-record warm year of 1998 and throughout the beginning of the 21st century, global warming had slowed down or ‘paused,’” the article states. “But the 2015 paper, led by NOAA’s Thomas Karl, employed an update to the agency’s influential temperature dataset, and in particular to its record of the planet’s ocean temperatures, to suggest that really, the recent period was perfectly consistent with the much longer warming trend.”

The article goes on to explain that the study caused controversy in Congress.

“It actually led to a congressional subpoena from Rep. Lamar Smith, chair of the House Committee on Science, who charged that ‘NOAA’s decision to readjust historical temperature records has broad national implications’ and requested more information on why NOAA had made the dataset adjustment, including data and communications from the scientists involved,” the article says.

A new study published on January 4 supports the findings of the earlier NOAA study. The study’s lead authors, Kevin Cowtan and Zeke Hausfather, wrote a blog post for Scientific American on their study and the political controversy around the older NOAA findings.

“Our results suggests that the new NOAA record is likely the most accurate of the various sea surface temperature records during the past two decades, and should help resolve some of the criticism that accompanied the original NOAA study,” the Scientific American blog post said.

“However the scientific question of how fast the Earth has been warming over the past two decades can be answered by replication from the scientific community, not by a political investigation. And the best evidence we have says that NOAA got it right,” the Scientific American blog post says.

“Our results suggests that the new NOAA record is likely the most accurate of the various sea surface temperature records during the past two decades, and should help resolve some of the criticism that accompanied the original NOAA study,” the Scientific American blog post said.

“However the scientific question of how fast the Earth has been warming over the past two decades can be answered by replication from the scientific community, not by a political investigation. And the best evidence we have says that NOAA got it right,” the Scientific American blog post says.